Our Stories

The women’s committee of the High Peace Council (HPC), an Afghan body involved in the country’s peace efforts, has submitted today a petition – containing the signatures of more than 250,000 Afghan women and girls calling for peace – to the Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Afghanistan for onward transmission to the UNDP Administrator Helen Clark.

Newly-married and pregnant Amena recently took the bold step of leaving her violent husband. She is among the millions of Afghan women for whom life has improved over the past decade. Today, more women are able to access services, like legal aid, participate in decision-making, and more girls are enrolled in school than a decade ago.

Herat, November 2011: Fatima (name changed), resident of Injil on the outskirts of Herat city in western Afghanistan, was married to her first cousin Sultan, at age 15. Unable to cope with the daily physical violence of her husband who also forbade her from attending school, and daily arguments with her mother-in-law, she ran away to her parent’s home. It has been seven months since Fatima left her husband’s home and her condition is exacerbated by the fact she is in an advanced stage of pregnancy.

Azima Safi, 50, runs a small embroidery business in Jalalabad. She learned sewing handicrafts when she lived with her family as a refugee in Peshawar, Pakistan during the 90s. As the oldest kid in the family, she had to quit school at grade five and work for someone else making handicrafts at a low daily wage, which she spent on her siblings’ schooling. Upon returning to Afghanistan in 1998, she started up a home-based embroidery business of her own in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.

UNDP’s Human Development Report 2015 launch kicked of Tuesday afternoon at the American University of Afghanistan with an impressive turnout—over two hundred civil society activists, government officials, private sector representatives, journalists, students and UN staff, with one third of them women.

Uruzgan, Oct 2015 – The village of Qadam Shahli is split right down the middle by a river. For years, the only way people from one side could visit family members living on the other was via a little wooden bridge.

A canal that passes through Qala-e-Naw city and its eight adjacent villages in western Badghis province no longer leaks during flooding after it has been repaired with US $ 740,000 funding from the National Area-Based Development Programme, a joint rural development initiative of UNDP and the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

More than 2400 Kuchi of Registan area in Bost district have now access to water provided by 20 wells built with support from the National Area-Based Development Programme (NABDP) and UNDP’s Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP).

“My father was the only person feeding our family. Before he was young and healthy and was able to sell our vegetables and fruits at the bazaar.” But this is not the case now as Farzana Hazarath, a 14 year old girl from Kang district of Nimroz province in southwest Afghanistan, explains.

In March this year, representatives from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), together with officials from the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), and UNDP specialists from Afghanistan and Tajikistan, visited Kyrgyzstan and Japan to see One Village One Product (OVOP) projects in action, and to meet with beneficiaries.

Muzhgan Sadaat, 23, is a soft-spoken young woman who comes across as happy-go-lucky. But when it comes to following her passion, she won’t surrender to anybody. Muzhgan was ten when she started to play volleyball, but as she grew older, her father thought it wasn’t appropriate for her to continue. “He said our relatives didn’t like it,” recalls Muzhgan. “They believed it was shameful for a girl to play sports.”

25 July 2016, Mazar-e-Sharif – Last week, we were in Mazar-e-Sharif, where, thanks to generous support from the Republic of Korea, UNDP has helped to improve local governance and support local women as they build successful businesses.

Uruzgan, Oct 2015 – The village of Qadam Shahli is split right down the middle by a river. For years, the only way people from one side could visit family members living on the other was via a little wooden bridge.

12 February 2017, Kabul, Afghanistan – For 24-year-old Nabila, becoming a police officer was not only a childhood dream but a sacred duty. This was something she felt she had to do after witnessing the suffering of women in her community. But it was not an easy decision for the mother of a 6-year-old in a town where only two women had ever been brave enough to join the police force. She had to go up against neighbors who said women police were “despicable” and “corrupting the minds of other girls”.

Daikundi, 05 Feb 2017 — Nili, the capital city of Daikundi province has always had a market, but no one used it much because it was filthy and difficult to reach. The people requested something be done and so the Government of Afghanistan and UNDP provided roads, toilets, drinking water and a landfill site for waste. Now people can get to the market, spend a longer time there, and the whole place is cleaner and healthier. This not only improves people’s daily quality of life, but also boosts the economy.

Everyone is Afghanistan loves flying kits – so what better way to get people taking about development than by holding a development-themed kite festival? Last month, UNDP set out with 500 kites to the top of Kabul’s Wazir Akbar Khan hill, and we invited all of Kabul to join us. Around 600 local people came along – men, women and children – to spend a day in sunshine flying kites decorated with the logos of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Jawzari is an area of great beauty and environmental significance in Bamyan province. But it is threatened by floods and avalanches. Since 2013, UNDP has helped local communities plant trees and set up nurseries, which protect against floods and provide new sources of income.

Jalalabad, November 2016 – On a scorching July afternoon several years ago, a farmer rushed into a laboratory in downtown Jalalabad with his two-year-old son, Sabawoon, fainting in his arms. “I’m here to test him for malaria!” he blurted out. Sabawoon had already been sick for two months in his rural village, but no one knew what was wrong. Even though Afghanistan has the fourth-largest malaria burden outside of sub-Saharan Africa, diagnostic facilities were extremely limited. This laboratory in Jalalabad was the only place in the whole province with a track record of diagnosing the most severe form of malaria. Just one sharp-eyed technician and his ageing microscope meant the difference between diagnosis and disaster.

Results in Focus

UNDP Afghanistan 2013 Annual Report

During 2013, UNDP Afghanistan remained committed to maintaining a close working relationship with Afghanistan’s government and people. It reorganised its work around the areas of inclusive and legitimate politics; sub-national governance and development; rule of law; and the cross-cutting areas of gender, capacity development, and poverty and the environment. In this context, projects were implemented and results achieved in the areas of peacebuilding, rule of law, democratic governance, poverty reduction and livelihoods, and managing resources for sustainability and resilience. For more information, please download the full report. English PDF